[Gvsig_english] QUESTION gvSIG 1.9 (BN 1253) -- Future of gvSIG and Sextante

Fri Mar 26 21:43:34 CET 2010

Hello Ben, 
I can't read how do you want to make gvSIG OADE sustainable for the future. Your answer 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are about gvSIG.
You can write on the gvSIG SVN, aren't you? Why do you need to fork off the code for gvSIG?

Regards
Jose

________________________________
De: Benjamin Ducke <benjamin.ducke at oxfordarch.co.uk>
Para: Users and Developers mailing list <gvsig_internacional at listserv.gva.es>
Enviado: vie,26 marzo, 2010 19:17
Asunto: Re: [Gvsig_english] QUESTION gvSIG 1.9 (BN 1253) -- Future of gvSIG and Sextante

----- "José Antonio Canalejo Alonso" <jacanalejo at yahoo.es> wrote:

Hi Jose,

> Hello Ben,
> there are a lot of people working on gvSIG Project and trying to make
> it sustainable for the future. That's not easy but they make it
> possible.

Yes, I understand. I am one of them. I have dedicated a lot of time
to gvSIG because I am convinced that it is a great project (and has
some equally great developers and users, btw.) and I believe that it is the 
first time an open source GIS is getting close to breaking the ESRI monopoly.

That's why I feel it is important to talk about anything that may be
going wrong!

> Your sentence is not true: "we have an official version for use at CIT
> and branches for use by the rest of the world" . The official version
> of gvSIG is for use all over the world.

My expression was probably a bit drastic. What I meant to say was:
A lot of users are expecting gvSIG to run on Java 1.6, to include
SEXANTE, to run on Win7 and Mac OS X. When these demands are not
being met, even though it is technically possible to do so, users
start wondering "why?". If the answer to that question is: "Because
of some internal consideration at CIT", then that is likely to frustrate
people outside CIT. I think we can see this start happening now and
it is not a good thing...

Also, the way gvSIG is being developed very much to fit CIT workflows
increases the risk that users with very different data and workflows
will get into trouble. An example of this happened to us at OA 
(problems with the raster engine and affinely transformed rasters) and
was the reason why we had to fork off the code for gvSIG OADE 2010.

> How do you want to make gvSIG OADE sustainable for the future us an
> open source project in the true spirit of it?
> 

I have worked in other open source projects before this one and
had a chance to study some of the dynamics involved, so let me
share some of my experience with you.

From my point of view, these are the most important things that
need "fixing" (a lot of overlap with Silvio's last message):

1. Publish an up-to-date and complete roadmap. So everyone can
see where gvSIG is going (and be ready to make adjustments if
there are good reasons being voiced by the community).

2. Complete English translations and communication (all web pages, 
all documentation, all traffic on the bug tracking list,
source code comments, error messages and GUI strings). Otherwise
this project will remain largely closed to non-English speaking
code contributors.

3. Open up discussion of new features and design. Let your users
share their thoughts about how to get features "just right". 
It will give interesting perspectives and improve quality all over.

4. Open up the bug tracker read-only for everyone, but also
give ticket writing privileges to those users who would like
to go bug hunting and file reports directly. Urgent: switch
all communication on the bug tracker to English as soon as
possible. Essentially, this means external peer review 
-> huge quality booster!

5. And finally, most importantly: release early, release often!
Don't worry about every release being perfect or even able to
run at all. People can always switch back to an earlier version. 
But do give plain users a chance to try even small improvements 
and provide feedback on how a major release is shaping up. 
This actually was done quite well on the way up to gvSIG 1.9 
which sometimes had a release every week (Ideal! Please let's 
have weekly builds again!), but somehow no longer happens. 
Note: this would also need to be done for extensions!
All we need is an automatic snapshot of the SVN binaries once
on a Friday evening.

Along the lines of what Silvio said: Some things to ponder over the weekend!

Have a nice weekend folks!

Ben

> Regards
> José Canalejo
> 
> 
> 
> --
> José Antonio Canalejo Alonso
> CSGIS
> Email:jose.canalejo at csgis.de
> Web: http://www.csgis.de
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> De: Benjamin Ducke <benjamin.ducke at oxfordarch.co.uk>
> Para: Users and Developers mailing list
> <gvsig_internacional at listserv.gva.es>
> Enviado: vie,26 marzo, 2010 16:32
> Asunto: Re: [Gvsig_english] QUESTION gvSIG 1.9 (BN 1253) -- Future of
> gvSIG and Sextante
> 
> Hi all
> 
> > About Sextante + gvSIG in the future... My opinion is that we will
> be
> > togheter, and there will be always a gvSIG+Sextante distribution. In
> > fact, we are planning a new 1.9.1 release to fix some of the more
> > anoying bugs, and we will try to put the latest Sextante release (if
> > it
> > is possible. There are some problems, for example, latest release
> will
> > need java 1.6, and CIT (the public administration that pays the
> bill)
> > still have a lot of computers with 1.5, so we need compatibility
> with
> > 1.5. Maybe the solution will be to make 2 distributions, one with
> 1.5
> > and other with 1.6, I don't know).
> >
> 
> Well, that explains something!
> And here we are guessing for months while gvSIG 1.9 still ships
> with Java 1.6 and can no longer include SEXTANTE...
> 
> Sorry if this sounds a bit frustrated, but this is exactly the
> sort of opacity that will send external contributes running away
> if it keeps up (please see my more extensive comments below).
> 
> > These are only my personal thoughts. The decision process is driving
> > by
> > a commitee, but there is always a possibility to make an
> "unofficial"
> > distribution, like OADE [1] or the latest gvSIG portable (also with
> > Sextante, and with Vista and 7 compatibility (thanks to AI2, the
> > people
> > who is developing the 3D plugin), and with the collaboration of
> Víctor
> > to put Sextante, CSGIS, and some others (Jorge Gaspar, and my self,
> > for
> > example)).
> > BTW, there is another "flavor" in gvSIG for Mac, thanks to Agustin
> > Díez
> > and the people of AI2 (again) [3].... ;-)
> 
> So now we have gvSIG 1.9, gvSIG 2.0 (no binaries yet), gvSIG OADE
> 2010,
> and the new raster driver binaries done by AI2. But how is a first
> time
> user supposed to understand what's going on here?
> 
> This is exactly the problem with forking and why I hope version 2.0
> (or at least 2.1) will give us the opportunity to merge all of this
> mess
> into a consolidated platform, again.
> 
> If gvSIG is to be an open source project in the true spirit of it,
> then
> there need to be more frequent releases and there can be no exclusive,
> closed decisions by some committee about the design of the official,
> public and open source release. No complex code base has ever survived
> as an open source project in that way (look at Xara Xtreme for Linux
> for a horrible example; Netscape had to radically change its approach
> before it could turn into a successful open source project with
> Mozilla).
> 
> In fact, if there is pressure on CIT to develop a version specifically
> targeted at its own workplaces, than *that* version should be branched
> off to include things such as Java 1.5 support. The way it is right
> now,
> we have an official version for use at CIT and branches for use by
> the rest of the world -- that's the wrong way around from the open
> source point of view!
> 
> There is no "payment" as such for users contributing to this project.
> All
> they can get out of it is recognition and the good feeling to have
> contributed
> to something greater. But with the way development decisions are
> currently
> made, I don't see that happening. Which makes me worried that we will
> lose
> user contributions.
> 
> If CIT wants to get the *real* benefits from going open source, then
> it
> needs to adopt more of the open source mindset.
> 
> Ben.
> 
> >
> > Best regards, and keep going with your how-to manuals, and remember
> > that
> > the code behind all these releases is very, very simillar. Thanks a
> > lot
> > for your hard work.
> >
> >
> > Fran Peñarrubia
> > gvSIG Team.
> >
> >
> > [1] http://oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade/gvsigoade2010beta
> > [2] http://www.gvsig.org/web/plugins/downloads/gvsig-1-9-portable
> > [3]
> http://gvsigmac.blogspot.com/2010/03/big-news-gvsig19-working.html
> >
> >
> > Simon Cropper escribió:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > A recent post by Victor outlined the roadmap for Sextante.
> > >
> > > In it he indicated he intended to make Sextante into a library and
> > > allow various developers to assimilate this library into their
> > > projects, rather than maintain a plug-in system which requires
> > > constant rejigging to ensure the bindings work.
> > >
> > > Surprisingly, despite Victor pointing everyone to OADE 2010, the
> > > developers of gvSIG (core project) were not goaded into a
> response.
> > >
> > > So I am asking... What is the position of the gvSIG Developers
> > > regarding Sextante (you have had enough time to talk about this)?
> > Are
> > > you planning to incorporate the upcoming library into gvSIG or
> will
> > > you let this plug-in languish? I suppose the question is also
> > relevant
> > > for the next version of OADE.
> > >
> > > I think this is an important question as Sextante elevates gvSIG
> > into
> > > a product that can be used in a production environment; without it
> > > gvSIG lacks important basic functionality.
> > >
> > > And at a personal level, I am in the final stages of preparing my
> > > templates for my how-to manuals -- should I be writing my
> > > documentation for OADE 2010 (which incorporates Sextante) or
> > > gvSIG+Sextante or if the use of Sextante is uncertain, other
> > upcoming
> > > packages? I am also on record stating that gvSIG+Sextante is the
> > first
> > > FOSS GIS that I could use in a production environment. There is
> also
> > > an upcoming paper in OSGeo Journal to that elk. So, will these
> > > statements hold true in the future or will the gvSIG product fall
> > back
> > > to just the core modules?
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > >
> > > Cheers Simon
> > >
> > > Simon Cropper
> > > Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
> > > PO Box 160, Sunshine, Victoria 3020.
> > > P: 9311 5822. M: 041 830 3437.
> > > mailto: scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au
> > > <mailto: scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au >
> > > web: www.botanicusaustralia.com.au
> > < http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
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> > >
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> > >
> >
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